Triple homicide victims in Toronto were a Somali family

[Safferz]

Three bodies were found in an apartment in east Toronto, and a man fell off a bridge on to traffic on the highway not to far away, and the police have said that they were related incidents. Not sure who he was yet but it is starting to look like a murder-suicide by the father of the family. AUN to Zahra and her children, she was a public health nurse from Kenya.

 

Mother and two sons identified as triple homicide victims

 

Zahra Mohamoud Abdille, 43, and her two sons Faris, 13, and Zain, 8, are the three victims found dead in an East York apartment Saturday afternoon.

 

A woman and her two young sons have been identified as the victims found dead in an East York apartment Saturday afternoon, according to Toronto Police.

 

The bodies of Zahra Mohamoud Abdille, 43, and her two sons Faris, 13, and Zain, 8, were found in a third-floor unit at 85 Thorncliffe Park Dr., Toronto Paramedics confirmed. Emergency crews were called to the apartment at 4:41 p.m. Saturday.

 

The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) confirmed Monday night that Zain was a student at William Burgess Elementary School and Faris was a student at Westwood Middle School.

 

“Our thoughts are with their family, friends and teachers at this difficult time,” a TDSB spokesman said in an emailed statement.

 

“Counselling is in place at the schools and will remain for as long as needed,” he said.

Police investigators have been quiet about a reported connection between the discovery of the three bodies and the body of a man who fell onto the nearby Don Valley Parkway earlier Saturday afternoon. The man’s body and the investigation shut down the southbound DVP in the area for hours.

[Nin-Yaaban]

Aun to all 3 of them. I'd like to hear more about this, why would anyone hurt the most innocent - kids in this case.

 

He should've just just killed him if he was so intended in exiting this world and left the innocent people alone.

 

 

[Mooge]

Allah u naxariisto. may be the guy was depressed or could be jealousy issue.

 

Safferz, Hi.

[Holac]

Alaha u naxariisto dhamantood. What drove him over the sanity edge to commit such a heinous crime?

[Holac]

Vigil to be held for mother and two sons found dead over the weekend

 

A vigil is being held Tuesday night for the mother and two children found dead in a Thorncliffe Park apartment building over the weekend.

 

43 year-old Zahra Mohamoud Abdille and sons Faris, 13 and Zain, 8, were discovered Saturday.

 

According to a Newstalk 1010 police source, officers were at the apartment looking for relatives of a man that had plunged to his death from a bridge above the DVP in a suspected suicide. Police say there is a connection between the DVP incident and the discovery of the bodies but have not revealed more information.

 

Contacted Tuesday by Newstalk 1010 police say that Traffic Services is still trying to identify the deceased.

 

Abdille was a public health nurse working for Toronto Public Health. The agency found out Monday night about her death and colleagues were informed Tuesday.

 

She reportedly fled war in Somalia in the late 90s.

 

Her two children attended William Burgess Elementary School and Westwood Middle School and the TDSB is offering support to students that need it.

 

See more at: http://www.newstalk1010.com/news/2014/12/02/vigil-to-be-held-for-mother-and-two-sons-found-dead-over-the-weekend#sthash.e7RwE6w5.dpuf

[Safferz]

Holac, I'm just speculating at this point based on the limited info and how these things usually go. We don't know yet who the man who fell off the bridge was, or how that case is related to the triple homicide. But it's looking like it was the husband, if he were alive we would have heard from him in the media by now.

 

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@Mooge

said:</cite>

Allah u naxariisto. may be the guy was depressed or could be jealousy issue.

 

Safferz, Hi.

 

Hi Mooge!

[Safferz]

Another article that mentions her husband:

 

A Toronto public health nurse and her two young sons were identified Monday as the victims of the triple homicide in East York.

 

Zahra Mohamoud Abdille, 43, and her sons Faris, 13, and Zain, 8, were found dead in a third-floor unit at the Thorncliffe Park Drive apartment complex about 4:30 p.m. Saturday.

 

Abdille was working as a public health nurse for the city, Toronto Public Health spokeswoman Lenore Bromley confirmed late Monday night.

 

“We have just become aware of this tragedy. Our thoughts are with the families, friends and colleagues affected by devastating news,” Bromley wrote in an emailed statement to the Star.

 

In a story published in the Star in 2003, a woman named Zahra Abdille, who was studying to become a registered nurse at the time, was interviewed at a Toronto daycare centre where she was picking up her two-year-old son, Faris. It is unknown if this Zahra and Faris Abdille are the same mother and son who were killed.

 

In the story, Zahra and her partner, Yusuf Abdille, were collecting Faris from the Pat Schulz Day Care. The couple were receiving a child-care subsidy.

 

The Abdilles were reported to have fled war-torn Somalia as refugee claimants in the late 1990s. The couple studied English at the Adult Learning Centre on Danforth Ave.

 

“If we didn’t get a child-care subsidy, I’d still be in my apartment unable to speak English,” Zahra Abdille told the Star in 2003. “There was no one I could leave my baby with. We didn’t know anyone.”

 

Her partner, Yusuf Abdille, was quoted as saying the daycare centre “is our family.” (The Star was unable to reach the Pat Schulz Day Care Monday night.)

 

Osman Ali, director of the Somali-Canadian Association of Etobicoke, told the Star he fielded at least 10 calls on Monday from concerned members of the public wanting to know what happened to the family.

 

Ali did not know the Abdilles, but said he was told by callers that they were from Somalia and that Zahra Abdille was a “good person.”

 

“I’ve been with the association 28 years and I’ve never seen anything like this,” he told the Star.

 

“This was a family, two children and a mother. We don’t understand the motives yet or why it happened and the community is very saddened and moved by this tragedy.”

 

Police are remaining quiet about any possible connection between the triple homicide and the death of a man who fell onto the nearby Don Valley Parkway a few hours before the bodies of Abdille and her two sons were discovered. On Sunday, Det. Tam Bui told the Star there was some correlation between the deaths, “but it’s not very tangible at this time.”

 

On Monday, CityNews reported that police discovered the three bodies in the apartment when they were looking for the next of kin for the man who fell to his death on the DVP. Bui would not confirm the connection between the two incidents to the Star Monday night, but said police were working with Traffic Services to “help identify their deceased.”

 

The TDSB confirmed Monday that 8-year-old Zain Abdille was a student at William Burgess Elementary School and 13-year-old Faris Abdille attended Westwood Middle School. Counselling is being offered to students at both schools and “will remain for as long as needed,” a TDSB spokesman’s statement read.

 

“Our thoughts are with their family, friends and teachers at this difficult time.”

[Safferz]

She was a colleague of my mom's, they worked at different offices but knew each other and she was good friends with the other Somali women who work there. She told me the woman's husband is from Seychelles and she met and married him in Canada, so I'm not sure who the "Yusuf Abdille" in the article above was (although Somalis say all kinds of things for refugee claims, it could have been a relative she claimed was her husband to get him out as well, so perhaps she stuck to her story when speaking to Toronto Star back in 2003).

 

Apparently what happened was that the man who fell on to the highway had ID on him, and when police went to his address to notify his family, they found the murder scene. They were all stabbed to death.

[Holac]

Safferz, I found the mother's picture. This is tragic.

 

[Holac]

Here is the article.

 

Friends of mother & sons murdered in Thorncliffe Park say family was ‘lovely’

 

New details are coming to light on Tuesday about a mother who was found dead along with her 13-year-old and eight-year-old sons in a Thorncliffe Park apartment over the weekend.

 

Zahra Abdille, 43, came to Canada in 2001 with her husband and their first-born son. Friends say she learned English and graduated from the Adult Learning Centre on the Danforth before becoming a nurse practitioner at Toronto Public Health.

 

Workers at the Pat Schulz Child Care Centre, who looked after the two boys when they were infants, said all three were like family to her.

 

“I haven’t even had time to process it,” Shantih Lawrence with centre said. “I’m sort of just trying to get through my day. I’m still teaching in my class and in the back of my mind I’m like – I can’t believe this is happening.”

 

Kristi Bovaconti, the director at the centre, said she spoke with Abdille just last week and she sounded fine.

 

“It’s shocking when you first hear something like that and know that you just spoke to these people not that long ago,” she said.”It’s very upsetting.”

 

Zahra Abdille, 43, was found dead inside a Thorncliffe Park apartment along with her two young sons, Nov. 29, 2014

Zahra Abdille, 43, was found dead inside a Thorncliffe Park apartment along with her two young sons, Nov. 29, 2014

 

Bovaconti said every year at Christmas time Abdille’s husband would phone the centre and leave a long message expressing his appreciation for everything they had done for the family.

 

“We would’ve gotten that message from Dad again because it happened consistently every year, and it’s not going to happen this year,” she said. “We knew how lovely they were – both of them. Somebody will figure out what happened.”

 

Police have not said how Abdille and her two sons died, nor have they released details on a possible connection to a police investigation that shut down a section of the Don Valley Parkway for several hours on Saturday, the same day the bodies were discovered.

 

Flags at both of the children’s schools were lowered to half mast on Tuesday.

 

A vigil will be being held at 85 Thorncliffe Park Drive near Don Mills Road and Overlea Boulevard starting at 6 p.m. Tuesday.

 

Read More at: http://www.citynews.ca/2014/12/02/friends-of-mother-sons-murdered-in-thorncliffe-park-say-family-was-lovely/

[Safferz]

Here are the kids:

 

[Holac]

Angels have been eliminated. AUN these saqiirs.

 

[Alpha Blondy]

not surprised by this heinous crime.

 

this is what happens when ethnic Somali women marry none Somali men. quite frankly, any mixing of ethnicities is destructive. how many more Somali women will be killed by none Somali men before this sicken culture comes to an end.

[Safferz]

 

Slain nurse moved family to women’s shelter, says its boss

 

Zahra Abdille, found dead with her two sons on Saturday, had fled a violent relationship and stayed in a safe house with her two young children last year, according to the executive director of Dr. Roz’s Healing Place.

 

A slain Toronto nurse fled a violent relationship to stay with her two young sons in a safe house while she tried to gain custody of her children last year, according to abused women’s centre Dr. Roz’s Healing Place.

 

On Saturday afternoon, Zahra Abdille, 43, and her sons, Faris, 13, and Zain, 8, were found dead in the same East York apartment they ran from last July, the centre’s executive director Roz Roach told the Star Tuesday.

 

Roach said the family stayed in the centre’s shelter for three weeks while Abdille battled for the custody of her children.

 

During her stay at the centre, the Toronto Public Health nurse went to court twice to fight for custody, but Abdille did not qualify for legal aid and could not afford a lawyer, Roach said.

 

When Abdille and her sons arrived at the centre on July 10, she told staff she was running away from a long-term violent relationship, Roach, who has a PhD in health and human sciences, said.

Abdille had escaped war-torn Somalia and arrived into Toronto in the late 1990s. She had no family in Canada, Roach said.

 

Roach says Abdille’s file Dr. Roz’s Healing Place states that she met her partner in 1997 and the couple married a year later in Toronto.

 

Roach said police would be collecting the Abdille family file from the centre Wednesday morning.

Valerie McRobie, the centre’s child advocate, worked closely with the family and said Abdille was “a very hands-on mother.”

 

“Her children’s happiness came first on top of everything else that was happening in her life,” McRobie said.

 

Abdille watched her son’s soccer games and was seen helping the boys with homework during their three-week stay, McRobie said. “She was trying really hard to keep herself and the boys safe and she was going through the legal process but coming up against a lot of roadblocks, she was getting so frustrated.”

 

McRobie said she can still remember the “bright smiles” of Faris and Zain.

 

“They always had smiles on their faces and they were happy, happy to be little boys,” she told the Star.

 

Roach said Abdille was also a “very private woman” who did not want the Somali community to know she was staying in the shelter.

 

“She was a nurse and she found coming to the shelter had a stigma about it. She didn’t want anyone to know,” Roach said.

 

The family stayed until July 23 when Roach said they moved into a downtown private rental.

The nurse was last seen at the centre earlier this year collecting mail she had redirected there while she was living in the shelter. Roach said Abdille told staff at the time “everything was going well.”

 

Roach feared Abdille may have been unable to afford rent in the city’s strained private market and been forced to return to her abusive partner, a situation many other clients from the centre had faced, she said.

 

“Some of the obstacles these women have to go through are unbelievable. She was devastated when she tried to get interim custody of the kids but she did not get it. For me personally, I get really angry at the system when these things happen,” Roach said.

 

According to Abdille’s file, which was read out to the Star over the phone, staff at the Ontario Court of Justice on Sheppard Ave. told the nurse she did not qualify for legal aid and that she should speak to a student lawyer for further advice.

 

She was also told by the court that she needed to provide additional documents, such as income tax returns and receipts for daycare and school camps before her application would be processed, her file states.

 

“Zahra was a wonderful human being and her sons were two bright boys who we had hope for,” she said.

 

Faris Abdille was in Grade 8 at Westwood Middle School and principal Marc Sprack told the Star he loved skateboarding and drawing and had an “infectious smile.”

 

“We’re having a hard time here trying to make sense of a very difficult situation,” Sprack said Tuesday.

 

Zain Abdille was attending William Burgess elementary, Faris’ old school. Shane Colby, 10, said Faris, who was three years older than him at William Burgess, was always nice to the younger kids and even protected Shane when he was being bullied at school.

 

“He was a really good guy. He was one of the reasons I could go to Grade 1 feeling safe,” Shane said.

 

Faris, whose nickname was Faris Wheel, would stand beside Shane when older boys were tying to bully him; the pair would also trade hockey cards, he said.

 

“He also did really nice things for other people,” Shane said. He’d race the younger students and let them win, “so they could feel like winners.”

 

“He’s just a great person and life wouldn’t be the same without him. It’s just really sad that he has to go away,” Shane said.

 

Shane’s mother, Nancy Adderley-Colby, said all the younger boys adored Faris. He graduated from William Burgess after Grade 5, but would come back to the school to visit Zain.

 

“Just even a few months ago, I went to pick up the kids and there is this buzz of excitement because Faris is there and he’s got this swarm of younger kids around him and he’s playing with them,” Adderley-Colby said.

 

Both Faris and Zain attended the Danforth Ave. Pat Schulz Child Care Centre as toddlers, director Kristi Bovaconti said.

 

“They were that family that reached out and wanted to talk to you and tell you how much they appreciate everything you’re doing for them,” Bovaconti said. “They just loved being here.”

In the years following, Abdille regularly kept in touch with Bovaconti — the two women spoke just a week ago. Abdille sounded like her upbeat self, Bovaconti said.

 

“She was just really happy and friendly and just a lovely, lovely person,” Bovaconti said.

Toronto police remain tight-lipped about a possible connection between a man who fell to his death from a bridge over the Don Valley Parkway and the triple homicide. Police discovered the bodies of Abdille and her two sons a few hours after finding the man’s body.

 

On Tuesday afternoon, Toronto police Const. Clint Stibbe said traffic services have not yet identified the man.

[DoctorKenney]

AUN to this family.